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Learning & Skills Policy UpdateAugust 2009
IntroductionThis newsletter is intended to keep you abreast of policy developments in learning and skills and the TUC/trade union view on them as well as keeping you up-to-date on a range of union learning initiatives. If you have any suggestions about either the content or the design of the newsletter, please contact Richard Blakeley: rblakeley@tuc.org.uk. The newsletter is available on the main TUC website www.tuc.org.uk/skills along with more policy briefings. For much more detailed information on union learning, you should go to www.unionlearn.org.uk (the Unionlearn website). You can register for email alerts on either or both of these websites. Please note that the following acronyms are used in this newsletter for the key Government organisations covering skills: DBIS (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills), DCSF* (Department for Children, Schools and Families) and UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills*). Maintaining investment in skillsUKCES is running a campaign calling on employers to maintain investment in the skills of their workforce during the recession. This campaign has included full-page adverts in the national press signed by the TUC General Secretary, CBI Director General and other leading figures from the world of work. Whilst supporting the general thrust of government policy, the TUC has called for additional measures to ensure that more people have the opportunity to acquire the skills they need to either retain their existing job or to find another job if they are made unemployed. The TUC set out a number of proposals in a report published in early 2009 - Skills in the Recession - and also in the TUC Budget Submission 2009, A Budget for Jobs and Green Growth. These proposals focused on the need for greater flexibilities for companies facing the threat of closure (e.g. companies moving to short-time working) to access government subsidies for training as part of a package of support to prevent redundancies occurring. The TUC has also been pressing for unemployed people to be able to access tailored skills training as early as possible in order to help them back into work as soon as possible or to give them the opportunity to retrain in a different sector. Skills activism agendaThere have been signals that the government policy will take a more proactive approach to addressing future skill needs, particularly with regard to the new ' industrial activism ' strategy, especially in key areas such as the development of the low carbon economy. Skills policy genuinely appears to be evolving from a largely employer-led approach to one which gives Government a greater strategic and regulatory role and attributes more importance to the needs of the workforce. The Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills articulated a change of policy approach in a speech to the CBI in October 2008, when he stated that ' through policy, regulation and through procurement, we are able to shape and create markets, and the skills that will be needed to drive them ' . More recently the Government announced in New Industry, New Jobs that it was developing a new Skills Activism policy approach that would be at the heart of industrial strategies designed to enable the economy to recover from the recession in a speedy and sustainable manner. ApprenticeshipsThe TUC welcomed the Government ' s World Class Apprenticeships* strategy to boost the availability of high-quality employer-based apprenticeships and the provisions relating to apprentices in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill which provides for a new statutory framework and related changes. However, the TUC has also highlighted the need for the use of other policy levers to boost number and quality, such as the active use of public procurement and the extension of the National Minimum Wage to apprentices. It was therefore welcome that in early 2009 the Government announced additional funding for 35,000 extra apprentices with a commitment that 21,000 of these would be recruited in public services and that the use of public procurement would be extended to require more contractors to recruit apprentices. A government initiative to safeguard construction apprentices at risk by making alternative arrangements to enable them to complete their training was also welcomed and the TUC has been calling for this kind of initiative to be adopted in other sectors. The TUC is pressing for the end of the exemption of apprentices from the national minimum wage. In June the Low Pay Commission (LPC) recommended that this exemption should end and that Government should ask it to consider the detailed arrangements for implementing this, including the new minimum wage rate for apprentices and the timing for its introduction. The Government has accepted this recommendation and the LPC is consulting on these new arrangements for apprentice pay. The TUC has also called on Government to ensure that unions were given the opportunity to be engaged in Apprenticeships at all levels, citing the recommendation by the OECD in its 2008 report ( Jobs for Youth: United Kingdom ) calling for unions in the UK to be more involved in the design of Apprenticeships alongside employers and agencies such as Sector Skills Councils. The new National Apprenticeship Service (NAS) was launched earlier this year . The TUC is working closely with NAS which is funding a new 2-year TUC project to build further on the union role in supporting apprenticeships at all levels and in particular in the workplace. The TUC has also published a major new bargaining guide - Apprenticeships are Union Business -for union reps covering all aspects of apprenticeships. As part of the move to establishing a statutory framework for apprenticeships, the Government is currently developing a Specification of Apprenticeship Standards for England (SASE), setting out the required content of the new apprenticeship framework. The TUC has called on the Government to set universal minimum standards in a number of important areas and also argued for a higher threshold for the annual entitlement to a specific number of hours for time off to engage in training and learning. Further, the TUC recommended that the employment rights and responsibilities element of the framework should be strengthened and that the role of trade unions, including how to join one, should be given greater priority. Right to Request Time to TrainThe Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill includes a provision for a new employment right which will enable employees to request time to train from their employer based on the framework used for the existing right to request flexible working. It is anticipated that the Bill will receive Royal Assent in autumn 2009 and that the new right will be implemented in April 2010. The new right has been welcomed on the basis that it could help a significant number of employees improve their skills and boost productivity and that it would give unions - and in particular union learning representatives - an important role in helping individuals to shape their requests to learn new skills. The Government issued a consultation on the Right to Request Time to Train (RRTT) in the second half of 2008 and the TUC response argued that there was a strong case for amending the proposed framework so that it was more flexible than the right to request flexible working. For example, the TUC submission argued that the RRTT framework should have fewer ' business reasons ' entitling employers to refuse a request and that agency workers should be eligible to use the new right. However, the Government ' s response to the consultation confirmed that it remained committed to using the right to request flexible working framework as the basis for the RRTT framework. In the first half of 2009 the opposition parties tabled a number of amendments to the Bill which would have restricted the eligibility of certain employees to use the RRTT if their employer provided annual training reviews. The TUC lobbied Government raising serious concerns about these developments and to date none of these amendments have been passed. Unionlearn is currently putting in place plans to train union representatives to support implementation and wider awareness of the right in the workplace, especially via the role of union learning representatives. In addition, over the coming months Unionlearn will be making a major contribution to a stakeholder group that the Government will be convening to help with the drafting of guidance to support implementation. Train to Gain and Skills PledgeThe Government ' s flagship workplace training initiative, Train to Gain, has faced a huge increase in demand from employers and this has placed very significant pressures on the budget. This compares with a situation in the previous year when the budget had not been fully expended due to lower than anticipated demand. The reasons attributed to the significant increase in demand over the past year include the relaxation of the eligibility criteria. As well as helping to improve delivery and take-up, these measures were also designed to maintain investment in skills as much as possible during the recession. As a result of the significant growth in demand there will be serious limitations on new training opportunities for the rest of the year as the priority will be to meet the commitment to existing trainees. An OFSTED review of Train to Gain published in November 2008 concluded that it ' was successful in raising employees ' personal skills and knowledge and in providing them with qualifications to recognise their vocational competence ' . However, it did call for improvements in certain areas, including: Skills for Life* provision, progression to higher level skills, and greater take-up amongst employers that do not traditionally engage with government training initiatives. A report from the National Audit Office published this month concluded that unrealistically ambitious initial targets and inconsistent implementation reduced the efficiency of the programme but that the now strong demand for training should be used as an opportunity to focus resources on the areas of greatest need and on training with the highest quality providers. Trade unions and union learning representatives in particular, supported by Unionlearn, have done much to raise awareness of the programme, to prioritise Skills for Life and to help broker provision. A set of good practice case studies to establish the nature of this involvement have been published on the Unionlearn web-site as the first phase in developing a new Train to Gain resource pack for trade unions. Unionlearn also continues to hold quarterly meetings with LSC* officials to discuss the ongoing union role in supporting Train to Gain provision in the workplace and the TUC is also represented on the national Train to Gain Stakeholder Group.
UKCES: Ambition 2020UKCES has published Ambition 2020, its first annual assessment of progress towards making the UK a world leader in skills, employment and productivity by 2020. The TUC welcomed this authoritative assessment which highlighted positive progress in recent years but also emphasised major challenges ahead in attaining world class performance by 2020, especially the urgent need to raise employer ambition. As a result of a request by the TUC, the Commission prioritised an inquiry into employee demand for skills which has looked at the motivations and barriers to skill development amongst individuals. The first phase of the inquiry involved a review of evidence and policy and the key findings include that ' working in a unionised environment tends to be associated with a higher probability of skills development ' and that ' support appears to be particularly effective when it occurs at the workplace, for example through union learning representatives. ' In July 2009 UKCES hosted a seminar for union officials to consider the findings of the first phase of the inquiry and to discuss the next steps of the Commission in developing this work. The Commission has also been taking forward an inquiry into ' skills utilisation ' and the TUC is represented on the external Advisory Group. This inquiry was instigated to meet a growing awareness by UK governments that skills policy needs to give greater consideration to ensuring that skills are effectively utilised as well as developed in the workplace in order to maximise the benefits for employers and employees. As part of this inquiry, UKCES has commissioned new research from the Work Foundation on High Performance Working (HPW) on the basis that this provides a crucial means to achieve more effective skills utilisation. This research has involved focus group activity with different groups, including one with union officials that was facilitated by the TUC. The TUC has also provided input to early drafts of the research papers, including highlighting concerns that the HPW models advocated by many academics gives insufficient weight to the importance of collective employee voice and trade unions. UKCES has also been tasked with reviewing the 'collective measures' available to Government to stimulate employer investment in skills. The review will focus on policies associated with collaborative employer action to raise the skills of their workforce including employer networks for training, licence to practice and human capital accounting. The Commission put out a call for evidence in 2008 and the TUC submitted evidence highlighting, among other things, the need for a more robust regulatory approach and also the need for Government to recognise that collective approaches by unions could play a greater role if statutory underpinning was considered for collective bargaining on training and union-led workplace learning agreements. Learning and Skills CouncilThe LSC will cease to exist from 2010 as a result of provisions in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. Funding for young people currently within the remit of the LSC will be transferred to local authorities in 2010 and a new national body - the Young People's Learning Agency - is to be established to support these new arrangements. Funding of adult skills from 2010 will become the responsibility of another new national body, the Skills Funding Agency. Sector Skills CouncilsUKCES has been charged with overseeing the relicensing of all Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) in line with the recommendation of the Leitch Review of Skills. The review of the performance of each SSC is being undertaken by the National Audit Office but the final decision on relicensing belongs to the Commission. It is anticipated that the whole process will be completed in December 2009. Unionlearn continues to play a significant role in supporting union involvement in the work of SSCs* by facilitating meetings of SSC union networks. These networks include union representatives on each SSC and also officials from other unions in the sector without direct representation who wish to be involved in the collective union engagement with the SSC. Unionlearn also undertakes other activities to support union engagement with SSCs, including running various seminars and regular national meetings which bring together all SSC union representatives. Unionlearn has also played an active part in the work of those SSCs that belong to the Manufacturing Skills Alliance (MSA) in developing a joint union and MSA recession strategy. This has included the production of a joint leaflet for employers and a road show for trade union representatives and officers that was piloted in the Northern region. The Alliance of Sector Skills Councils was formed during 2008 to act as the collective voice of SSCs, including co-ordinating policy and strategic relations with stakeholders. A recent priority of the Alliance has been the development of a Sector Skills Recovery Plan to tackle the impact of the recession and to enable all sectors to maximise the upturn when it arrives. This policy paper was shared with Unionlearn at a meeting of SSCs and trade union board members in April, jointly chaired by the director of Unionlearn and the Chief Executive of the Alliance. Advancement and Adult Careers Service and Skills AccountsThe Government is developing a new adult careers service and introducing skills accounts setting out individual entitlements. The national Advancement and Adult Careers Service, once formally introduced in the Autumn of 2010, aims to bring adult careers advisory services together into one coherent framework. The TUC is represented on the stakeholder group supporting ongoing development of these policy initiatives and is being consulted about the development of the new service, including its branding and quality assurance processes. A number of prototype services are being piloted in the English regions in partnership with existing local adult careers advisory services. The TUC is engaging with the lead service project managers to develop connections between the Unionlearn careers advisory service, to make connections with trade unions and to develop the role of union learning representatives in promoting the service. Skills and public procurementThe TUC lobbied the Government to extend the potential role of public procurement to require greater employer investment in skills, arguing that this has become even more important in the context of the recession. There have been a number of significant policy reforms in this area over the past year, beginning with a commitment in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report t hat whenever government departments and their agencies let new construction contracts, they would have to consider making it a requirement that successful contractors have apprentices as an identified proportion of their workforce. The Government also signalled that it would explore a similar approach in other areas of procurement spend, starting with IT contracts, and there are ongoing discussions to take this forward. The Government also published a new guide in 2009 - Promoting Skills through Public Procurement - to exploit the potential that public procurement provides to promote skills training and apprenticeships at national, regional and local levels. Production of a guide of this nature had been one of the recommendations of the Public Services Forum Learning and Skills Task Group and the TUC. Public Services SkillsThe Learning and Skills Task Group of the Public Services Forum (PSF) has published its final report - Quality Skills, Quality Services - including a number of key recommendations designed to improve workforce skills across public services. The adult social care sector was selected for a case study and a separate report was produced, Learning and Skills in Adult Social Care. The Task Group reached a consensus that existing government initiatives (e.g. Train to Gain, Skills Pledge and Apprenticeships) should be better used by employers and trade unions to drive up skills investment and skills utilisation across public services. Achieving improvements in leadership and management was another key theme as was the need for trade unions to further build the role of union learning representatives. The Task Group also considered a number of measures to counter the impact of the recession on workforce development in public services, including a much more proactive use by Government of procurement policies. Skills for LifeEarlier this year the Government updated its Skills for Life Strategy which was originally launched in 2001 to tackle the legacy of adults with literacy, language and numeracy skill needs within England. In 2008 the Government exceeded the target to ensure that 2.25 million adults improved their skills and gained a qualification by 2010 - over two years early. The updated strategy - Skills for Life: Changing Lives - aims to support the Government ' s long-term ambition for 95% of adults to have functional literacy and numeracy skills by 2020, up from 85% and 79% respectively in 2005. The TUC welcomed the updated strategy and highlighted that Unionlearn will continue to build on the vital and widely acknowledged role that union learning representatives play in supporting employees to achieve Skills for Life qualifications in the workplace. English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL)In May the Government published A New Approach to English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). This strategy takes forward the previous policy decisions to remove the universal entitlement to free ESOL* training up to level 2 in August 2007 (when fee remission was only made available to people receiving means-tested benefits and tax credits) and to refocus ESOL spending on long-term UK residents and in effect away from many migrant workers who had previously accessed this provision. The new strategy will enable 21 local authority pathfinders to implement the new approach which will inform full roll-out of the new approach when it goes ahead nationally across England from September. The TUC had raised a number of concerns with these changes including that many employers would not pay for ESOL training for employees who would no longer be eligible for fee remission . Higher educationThe government will be publishing a new Higher Education Framework in the autumn that ' will set out how higher education in England will take a more active approach to building British competitive strengths through higher skills levels, research and knowledge transfer ' . This strategy will coincide with the new Skills Activism policy. Both of these policy developments were set out in the New Industry, New Jobs strategy paper that is designed to ensure that HE* and skills policies support the new approach on industrial activism that the Government is taking forward. A new ' Supporting union learners into higher learning ' toolkit has been produced. This flexible resource is designed for unions and ULRs to support members in higher learning. The checklists and tools are useful resources that are linked to a training module for ULRs. This training is designed to support the use of the materials to help ULRs get the most out of using the toolkit with their members. Informal adult learningIn March the Government published a White Paper - The Learning Revolution - which set out its long-term plans for what all parts of Government could do to improve support for informal adult learning (IAL). Whilst many of the proposals involve better ways of working to maximise the use of existing resources, the White Paper also included the establishment of a £ 20 million transformation fund to support the development of new adult learning partnerships and innovative ideas. The White Paper also launched a new IAL Pledge so that organisations can demonstrate their commitment to informal adult learning and act in an ambassadorial role (early signatories to the pledge include Unionlearn and a number of affiliated unions). Newsletter (3,800 words) issued 5 Aug 2009 |
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